David Hewson (31 page)

Peroni
frowned and looked at Falcone. Costa knew what the gesture said:
I tried
.

"Am
I helping around here?" Peroni enquired.

Falcone
scowled, not at them, at the chaos around all of them. "Ask me
later."

"I'd
like to go after the girl, sir," Peroni said quietly. "Just me. You
can spare one man. This isn't a personal thing. I still think she's
got something to tell us."

"Do
it," Falcone murmured. "And, Peroni--it was a nice try."

"Thanks,"
the big man murmured.

Costa
followed his partner back to the jeep and handed over the keys.

"Where
are you going to look, Gianni?"

"Same
places as we did before."

He
had to ask--Peroni got wrapped up in himself sometimes. "What if
this guy's still after her, too?"

"Then
I guess we might meet. If it happens I'll call. Besides, I don't
think you're going to bump into him with Agent Leapman around. Do
you?"

"Not
really." All the same, the difficult relationship with the FBI agent had
surely been fractured beyond repair now. Was that what they wanted? "When
did Leo put you up to this little act?"

Peroni's
face registered mock shock. "Put me up to what?"

"You
know damn well."

He
laughed. It was a good sound, one Costa had missed of late. "Look, Leo
and I know each other of old. Sometimes you don't have to put things in
words. You just improvise a little. He's as sick of that asshole as we
are. And what I said was true. It's time for the guy to level with us.
Sooner or later he's going to realize that himself. We're supposed
to be on the same side, aren't we?"

Leapman
had been shaken by the evidence they'd got on the cord, Costa thought. But
there was something else bugging the American too: the latest death. For some
reason, he still found it difficult to believe it really was the same killer.

Peroni's
face was serious again. "Forget Agent Leapman for a moment, Nic. Tell me
this. Why did Laila run away? I don't get it. I thought we were doing
really well and normally I don't read those situations the wrong
way."

Costa
shrugged. "Who knows with a kid like that? Maybe it's
because
you were doing so well. Maybe the idea of closeness terrifies her."

"Nah,"
Peroni murmured and gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. "I
don't buy that any more than I buy Leapman playing innocent. You
don't know the first thing about kids, do you, Nic?"

"As
you constantly remind me."

He
watched Peroni fit his big bulk behind the wheel.

"Call
me if you need me, Gianni," he said.

"Yeah,"
the big man laughed and gently eased the jeep out into the street.

Nic
Costa hated instincts. They played tricks with your imagination. They lied
constantly. He reminded himself of that as Gianni Peroni disappeared down what
was once a narrow, medieval lane, now a line of upscale fashion shops running
all the way down to the Corso. Some stupid, pointless instinct was nagging at
him, raking over the dregs of his memory to find the long-dead face of another
partner, Luca Rossi, one who'd wandered off without him in much the same
way and never come back.

Instincts
intruded into real life, disturbed what really mattered. Besides, something was
happening now. Falcone was listening to the squawk of a voice coming out of the
car radio. The tall inspector had a look of intense concentration on his face,
one Costa recognized. One he liked.

Falcone
finished the conversation and scanned the square. Then he caught Costa's
eye, clicked his fingers and pointed, with some urgency, to the car.

JOEL
LEAPMAN CAME BACK to the embassy looking uncharacteristically dishevelled,
shambling through the door like a bull looking for somewhere to pick a fight. He
was in a foul, unpredictable mood.

"Sir?"
Emily asked.

"What
have you been doing all day? Don't I get the courtesy of a call from you,
girl?"

"I
thought..."

She
glanced at the computer screen, now back to her customary log-on with its round
of low-level information. The camera was still in her purse. That was dumb. She
should have taken it back to the apartment, got the evidence out of the
building.

"You
thought what?"

"I
thought you wanted me to wait until you had something for me to do."

"Jesus..."

Leapman
seemed seriously out of sorts. Food spattered his coat.

"Is
there something wrong?" she asked.

"Is
there something right?" he complained.

Leapman
looked like someone with doubts and that wasn't a position he liked or
understood very much at all.

"These
cops," he said. "Falcone. The other guys. Why'd they hate us
so much?"

"I
don't think they do," she answered promptly. "Not for one
moment."

"Really?
I just had that big ugly bastard stuff a burger into my mouth. What was that
all about?"

She
thought about Gianni Peroni. It didn't add up. "You tell me."

"None
of your business," Leapman barked back at her.

Emily
Deacon was getting deeply sick of this man. Maybe Thornton Fielding was right. She
should just file a complaint and get out of his presence.

"Then
why ask?"

"Because,
because..." he grumbled. "You don't need to know the
reasons. Sometimes events just run away with you, Agent Deacon, and
there's not a damn thing you can do about it."

"If
that's an apology, you should direct it at them."

Leapman
had pissed everyone off. He'd been working on it from the moment they
walked into the Pantheon. It had been deliberate, determined.

"So
now they're the good guys, huh? I should go running to them?"

"I
think they're doing their best in difficult circumstances."

His
voice rose. "It's difficult for all of us, girl!"

Enough
was enough. "It's more difficult for them, Leapman. They think
they're being kept in the dark. They're right. And one more
thing." She pointed a slender finger at his chest. "Don't
call me "girl." Not ever again."

Or "Little Em
."

He
laughed and Emily Deacon was surprised to find herself thinking that this was,
perhaps, what he wanted to hear.

"So
you can answer back," Leapman said. "Who'd have believed
it?"

He
leaned over to his PC, keyed in a few words, then turned the screen to face
her. It was the RAI news website. The lead story was about another murder in
the city, with a photo of a burnt-out car by the Spanish Steps.

"We're
losing this, Emily," he said in a flat, miserable voice. "And I
don't know why. He's killed someone else and I've got to tell
you that's the last thing I expected. This isn't part of any
pattern I can figure out. He's killed some poor, helpless bitch who got
in the way somehow. I never..."

Leapman
fell silent and stared at the monitor.

"You
never what?"

"I
never thought he'd stoop to that."

He
picked up the phone and hit a speed-dial button.

"Viale?"
he asked, and there was a different tone to his voice now, a resigned, almost
scared resonance she scarcely recognized. "We've got to talk...
Just a minute."

Leapman
cupped the mouthpiece and stared at her.

"I'd
like a coffee, Agent Deacon," he said. "Cappuccino. The good stuff,
from that place over the road. And take your time. I've got work to
do."

NIC
COSTA TOOK a deep breath and found it amazing that, only an hour earlier,
he'd been worried about Gianni Peroni. Wherever the big man was in the
white, frozen world that was Rome, it had to be better than this: clinging to a
narrow, icy fire-escape ladder a dizzying height above the cobbled streets in
the labyrinthine quarter north of the Pantheon, trying to peer through the
billowing blizzard that was sweeping all around him.

Another
time, in different weather, when the wind wasn't trying to peel him off
the roof and dash him to the ground below, it would have been quite a view. The
Palazzo Borghese should have been somewhere ahead. On a good day the great dome
of St. Peter's would have shone from across the river. Now all he could
see was the blinding cloud of ice swirling painfully around his face,
threatening to confuse his senses.

Falcone
had made it plain: it was his choice. The sly old bastard knew all along what
Costa would say too. Nic was the youngest there and the most suited for the
job. He'd done some mountaineering once, solitary trips into the
Dolomites and the Alps as a teenager. They could have waited until a specialist
was brought in, but that meant time, in this weather perhaps a long time. The
problem was simple. A woman in the block had reported that an American tourist
living on the top floor had, unusually, been absent all day. The previous evening
she'd been seen entering the building with a stranger. The same stranger
had walked out that morning carrying a couple of big, expensive-looking
suitcases. They'd got a description of the man. It could be the same
person Costa and Peroni had seen twice now, outside the Pantheon and by the
Tiber the previous night.

So
should they pile through the door with an entry team, blundering into the
place, hoping he was still hiding there? Or did they check it out first to see
whether it was occupied or not? And if it was empty, wait a while outside to
see if anyone happened to call back?

For
Costa the decision was clear-cut. The killer was human, not a monster. It was
important not to let go of that fact. The man needed somewhere warm and private
to retreat to in weather like this. This could be the first real chance they
had of trapping him.

Ordinarily
there were easier ways to find out if someone was inside. They could spy from
neighbouring blocks. They could use listening equipment through the walls. Not
this time. The place was a tiny, probably illegal cabin perched high above
street level like a giant toy box flung onto the big, flat roof of the
nineteenth-century apartment block. The windows were higher than any of the
buildings around. This must be the only home in the area with a scenic outlook,
which also meant it was impregnable, impossible to watch. The only way to find
out what lay inside was to try to get close somehow, and not through the front
door either, which lay up a narrow covered staircase leading from the top
floor, giving no visual access into the cabin whatsoever. The fire escape was
the only option. If the man was at home, Costa would, the plan said, see so
through the outside window and call in the forced entry team. If the place was
empty, he'd just take a quick look around, get the hell out of there,
then wait with the rest of them until someone came home.

Plans.

Costa
shivered on the shaky ladder and wondered what plans were worth now. He
hadn't thought too hard about the weather after he'd talked to the
woman who first made the call. He'd just cleared his ideas with Falcone,
then walked up three flights of stairs in the building, found the ancient fire
escape and started climbing through the swirling snowflakes. He hadn't
thought much about the odd geography of the building either. Falcone and his
men were parked discreetly outside, sufficiently close to stop anyone getting
away, anonymous enough not to be noticed by someone walking in through the entrance.
Or so they hoped.

Still,
it didn't give Costa much room for manoeuvre. They'd agreed it was
too risky to post a second person outside the apartment, even one posing as a
cleaner or a deliveryman. The individual they were after seemed too smart for
tricks like that. Any intruder would stick out like a sore thumb if the man
came back in the meantime. So if something went wrong Falcone and his team
would have to make an entrance from outside.

Now
that he'd climbed those steep, steep stairs Costa appreciated how long
that would take. His instinct couldn't tell him whether someone was at
home, but if someone was, it was going to be vital not to alert him.

On
this side of the cabin was a blind ledge just a metre wide, pointing back
towards the hill where Trinita dei Monti lay, now hidden by the
blizzard. Around the corner was a private terrace made for another climate. A
pair of small palm trees cut incongruous shapes in their giant terra-cotta pots
there, ice fringing their dead leaves, making them look like fantastic
Christmas trees. The snow was so deep Nic could only guess at what occupied the
other areas of the roof from the rounded white outlines they made: a barbecue,
an outside sink with a single, swan-necked tap, a collection of brushes and
brooms carelessly left to rot in the open air.

He
took one final, careful step up the treacherous ladder, reached the wall and
pulled himself upright onto the constricted strip of the ledge, teeth
chattering, shivering uncontrollably, feet almost off the building's
edge.